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December 27, 2009

The Sealed Letter

The Sealed Letter is based on an actual divorce case from 1860s London which caused quite a scandal at the time. Centring on a friendship between two women, one of whom is married and having an affair and one who has defied social convention to work in business and for women's causes, the story chronicles the effect on that friendship of public scandal. Well written by Canadian author, Emma Donoghue, it develops the story from each of the character's points of view as we watch them descend into a tabloid drama that leaves none of them unscathed. The legal system, specifically the divorce laws of the time is the other player in the drama - as one of the characters observes, if you made divorce easier for women, lots of them would leave their husbands. Wendy